Conservative Friend

It seems to be that many who profess Jesus Christ would tell us that God is hate, that Scripture is Law, that vengeance belongs to them rather than to the Lord.

Let us be the salt of the earth, then, seasoned, and not thrown out and trampled on. Just as Paul was all things to all people, let us be fundamentalists to fundamentalists, and proclaim to them FROM SCRIPTURE, that GOD IS LOVE. Furthermore, let us remind those who  condemn others in Christ's name that our standing orders are to love, to forgive, and to walk as Jesus Christ walked.

Let us retreat, at times, to listen to God, to praise Him, to wait on Him, to better see the Inward Light of Christ.

But at other times let us proclaim Him from the rooftops, boldly, because those who proclaim that God is nationalism, and war, and hate, are certainly bold. Let us avoid quietism, on the one hand, which is the salt that is trampled on, and secular political activism on the other, which is the way of the World, and which a fundamentalist will not acknowledge as Truth. While God is bigger than Scripture, Scripture points the way to Him and the Truth it contains will set all of us free.  

Thank you, Ken.  These are useful words.

Although I do not rely on Scripture as the source of my faith, I do find Scripture very useful.  It is particularly useful when discussing my faith with people who do base their faith on the Bible.  I can show folks in Scripture where the God of my experience speaks. 

I once took an evangelical, biblical inerrantist, Calvinist veteran on a long tour of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, showing how it was I could say that a Christian should not go to war.  It didn't convince him, but he did acknowledge.... "This is something to think about.  This is more complicated than I thought."  Several months later, I overheard him defending a much more greatly limited role for Christians in war than he ever had before.  Such slow turnings!  But I was very grateful that he was beginning to turn.

Hi Ken,

I enjoyed your post very much.

I was bought up in a military environment due to the fact that my father was a 20 year U.S Army career man (as a veterinarian). My Dad wasn’t really the hawkish type as far as war was concerned but most of his colleagues and their children were and most of that mind set seeped deeply into my character as a youth and stuck pretty much with me for many years thereafter. It is like getting some kind of automatic reflex built into your system that automatically thinks that the best solution to a lot of problems is simply to “pull the trigger” – simple although a little messy.

Later on I got interested in philosophy, then religion – then in Jesus and finally in Jesus Christ who became my Lord and Savior. Yet in spite of this - that I was eventually born into a new faith in Christ - I continued to carry in my character for many years that mindset that stemmed from my earlier brainwashing that was pro-war when war was needed – as some think.

I never actively took part in a war although I came very close it. I did a three year voluntary hitch with the U.S. Army between the ages 18 and 21 and at the end of my service period (1966) I was serving with the 3rd Armored Division (tanks and infantry) in Germany. As I was told shortly after my discharge many of my ex-military friends in Germany were shipped out to Viet Nam when the US went to war there back in 1967. So luckily I have never seen firsthand the death, the blood, the ruin, the stink, the torture and total desperation that one confronts when involved directly in a war. And I continually thank God that I never had to see such a thing close up.

I remember days back in 1968-69-70 when I was living in Dallas, Texas. I had a lot of friends there who were veterans of Viet Nam and their stories were reluctantly told with expressions of personal torment and pain. Many of them were persons who continued their living (day by day) in pain and nightmare and difficult times at night in sleeping. Today by way of increased technological advancements we all have seen, in various forms of media, the nightmare that these war veterans have experienced firsthand. Such reprints, I believe, are good in that they bring to point the unspeakable dreadfulness and horrifying character of war. It is one thing to imagine what it might be like – it is altogether another thing to see it point blank in a film clip or a series of photos that depict the reality of war.

From yesterday to today I have slowly turned from hawk to dove in my outlook on war. The way God works in the hearts of men is not only mysterious but also - at times as Shawna has pointed out – slow. I feel that the best we can oftentimes do is pray and ask of God that his Spirit might have dominance in the hearts of our fellow sojourners on this planet towards His love and reconciliation.

When I began writing this reply Ken, it was not my intention of writing the above. Somehow it just dribbled out. When I first said that I “enjoyed your post very much” it was due to the fact that its content seemed to be expressing the superiority and the leadership quality of Christ. I think that we often get things backwards in our attempts of following Christ. A good example of this is when you mentioned ‘secular political activism’. It is only natural that we as humans want to make our mark in this world and as a Christian we often feel that the only way of doing so is to become ‘active’ in some cause that outwardly seems a good cause (activism). In this sense we sometimes put tremendous amounts of energy on the ‘cause’ and sometimes even to the point of exhaustion and consequently to our own damage. What I mean by having got things backwards is that I feel that the ‘cause’, from a Christian viewpoint, should be second to Christ, i.e. our eyes and energy should be focused first on Christ in everything we do and then the ‘cause’ will follow of its own where ever Christ chooses to lead it. If we let a ‘cause’ lead us – then it will not be Christ who leads us. If in small local communities the focus is continually on Christ then His Sprit will lead those communities (they will not be lead by ‘cause(s)’. Christ’s leadership is not only for our on good (he loves us) it is beyond our every conception. We must trust him in order to allow his leadership to carry us to his predetermined destination throughout all eternity – and beginning with today. Trust and dependence on him, and him alone, should be a Christian’s first priority. And as you say Ken, “proclaim Him from the rooftops” – indeed yes. Yet at the same time let us quietly remember to worship him together with our friends in Christ with all our hearts – continually. When we worship him – we adore him and we also follow him.

In Christ,

George

I'm embarrassed to admit now but after 9/11 I really wanted us to go into Afghanistan.  I wanted us to go after the Taliban hard.  I was so angry, for their enabling al qaeda, and for their treatment of women and girls also.  I specifically remember saying "They deserve to have their a**es kicked."

Then I heard a report of a man who was advocating we not do this, that we seek peaceful means.   And he had lost his daughter in one of the twin towers.

I still struggle with this.  I am not a Quaker (yet), but I'm a Christian, a practicing Catholic.  And yet it was so easy for me to disregard the teachings of Christ.  Granted, it was an enormous provocation, but still.

Stephanie at 08:46PM on Oct 28, 2009

I'm embarrassed to admit now but after 9/11 I really wanted us to go into Afghanistan.  I wanted us to go after the Taliban hard.  I was so angry, for their enabling al qaeda, and for their treatment of women and girls also.  I specifically remember saying "They deserve to have their a**es kicked."

Then I heard a report of a man who was advocating we not do this, that we seek peaceful means.   And he had lost his daughter in one of the twin towers.

I still struggle with this.  I am not a Quaker (yet), but I'm a Christian, a practicing Catholic.  And yet it was so easy for me to disregard the teachings of Christ.  Granted, it was an enormous provocation, but still.

Stephanie, I was also angry, and I also struggle with 'Love your enemy' and 'Do good to those who hate you,'  not only regarding the Taliban but also regarding my neighbor, my fellow American, other Christians and so on and so on... 

But then, meditate on, 'Do good to those who hate you.'

Who really hates me? Maybe I'm the one who hates, and not the other way around. Or, if someone does hate me, I'm to do good to them. AAAArrrrghhh! Not a chance!  But the Son of God Himself bids me to do it. So I imagine, for starters, that I'm doing good to those who hate me. And with time... what a relief! What a burden off my shoulders!

Christ sets me right.

'Christian' nationalism sets out to put anger in the name of country over and above God.  I understand the anger. But Christ will remove that anger if you let Him.

I have struggled in the last few years with how to reclaim the Bible from those who seem to use it to seperate 'us' and 'them' (with me usually feeling more emotionally connected to the position of 'them'); and those (often in the same phrases) who use the Bible as a weapon of coercion & superiority, law over mercy & Love.   I keep (slowly, awkwardly, and sporadically) coming back to the importance of being a witness of Love.   Of focusing on acting from & through that Love that comes from the Living Lord.  Of avoiding my habitual reaction & comfort zone of relying on my logic, rational, facility with words, and abilities to debate. 

I know that true transformation, and true witness, comes from  following the inner Guide- not pursuing good works through a discpline of personal will (doing what I think I 'should').   Taking the time to listen.  Being a fool for the Lord.  That is a difficult disciple for me.

I know that coercion, the use of power & subtle force to prevail, and that which creates the condtions for violence and war- is prevasive, common, habitual, and very hard for me to avoid using.  Just as the witness of Love is all encompassing and comes from within; so does the pursuit of Peace.  Love can be done in fits and starts, and there are some situations and people that are easy to start baby steps with.  True peace, I think, requires a huge degree of integrity.  More than I can even come close to looking in the face.  I, and most of middle class America, benifit from coersion- and even war- greatly & often.  Not so much different from how the middle class of Woolman's time benifited from the institution of slavery.  I am just beginning to be able to look at & articulate this.  I am a long way from living with anything approaching integrity in this regard- even in my own personal interactions & transactions, much less my corporate complicity.